Over-the-Rhine resident Margy Waller works on neighborhood and arts policy issues with national organizations like Topos Partnership and Americans for the Arts. She is co-founder of the Bright Ride, a twice-annual friendship ride. Twitter: @margyartgrrl

Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley is super happy that last week's budget agreement kept intact plans for street fixes. "I'm most excited that we're finally going to (fix) the roads and infrastructure in our city," he said.

It's not the only thing we can do to make streets better for everyone – people walking, people driving, merchants, police and fire, and people riding bikes – but it's easy and very cheap to create the lanes while repairing our roads.

Adding bike lanes is a great complement to the recent addition of our bike share system, championed by the mayor.

Recently, one of the many academics visiting Cincinnati to grade AP exams asked about the lack of bike lanes. She was excited to ride a Cincy Red Bike from her Downtown hotel to Over-the-Rhine for a class at The Yoga Bar but she was surprised about the lack of marked bike lanes – something she is accustomed to using in other cities she visits.

Cincinnati officials know that people like living in and visiting places with bike lanes. "Having all those bikes [in marked lanes] on the road would be a sign of a more progressive city," one senior planner was quoted as saying in 2010. "Around the country, when you look at cities that are considered more progressive – San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago – they have a high share of cyclists, that class of creative people. We think Cincinnati fits into that group."

Bike lanes are good for business, too. People riding bikes and walking are more likely to stop and shop or eat. Merchants in places with bike lanes have discovered that slowing things down for people riding bikes and walking is great because they shop and spend more than people driving.

People often say they feel better even if they only ride a bike every now and then. Added exercise has a multitude of health benefits, including better weight, blood pressure and insulin levels, and decreased risk of obesity and breast cancer. And it's a social activity. All that, and riding a bike instead of driving can save people a lot of money. It's a simple way to transform a city and the lives of the people there.

With so many more people living and working in Downtown, Over-the-Rhine and nearby bikeable neighborhoods, we're perfectly positioned to make residents and visitors happier, healthier and wealthier by making it easy to ride a bike for errands and fun.

Maybe most importantly, bikes make people smile: riders and the people watching them.

In May, Mayor Cranley tweeted, "I think Cinti should be known as the most bike-friendly city in the U.S. & we're well on our way."

If we spend our street-fixing dollars wisely, by adding bike lanes where it makes sense as part of rehabilitation, we can be. And we'll be keeping up with other popular cities, encouraging visitors, and making streets a better place for all users: business owners, people driving, people walking, people on transit and people on bikes.